“In fact, I’m going to raise it with the Director—no use my taking it up with Personnel at this point. She herself has an appointment to see someone in Personnel, but you can imagine how far that’ll get her. Precisely nowhere. No, the thing would be for us to keep an eye on the manning-table. We’d have to have a slot for her—which we don’t have at this moment—and then request transfer. But a good case could be made, and the main thing would be timing.”

“I’m so glad.”

Gregory lifted his hand. “Just a moment. Not so simple. She doesn’t see it this way. She says she’ll only come here if she gets the grade of the job—in other words, a Specialized Two—as part of the transfer. Which is nonsense, of course.”

“Couldn’t be done?”

Gregory clicked his tongue. “Now Lidia, you know better than that. How’s she going to get from a Subsidiary C to a Specialized Two in one jump? What we can do is to stick her in the post, then put her up for promotion at the next half-yearly Board, and so on.”

“What does it mean, ‘and so on’?”

“Well—first of all, she won’t get through on the first round, so we’d put her up a second time, for the subsequent Board. That would be for a Subsidiary D. Then she’d be in a strong position to ask for the Specialized Two.”

“Several years, then?”

“Two or three.” Gregory shook his head. He was a just man. “Not right of course, but what can you do? If you work here, you have to go by the rules. Or you can always leave, naturally.”

“She’s spoken of leaving.”

“She won’t, you know.”

“What makes you think so?”

“One never does. Apart from anything else, what about pension? I’m not suggesting that your friend live an unsatisfactory life in order to collect a satisfactory pension—”

“An unsatisfactory pension.”

“—but at her age one begins to think about the future.”

“That’s what she’s doing.”

“Oh Lidia, come on now, be realistic. What would her separation pay be, after only twelve years here? And in our society there just aren’t that many jobs for women around—well, how old would she be?”

“She’s thirty-six.”

“Say around forty, then. Not jobs interesting enough, that is, to make it worthwhile giving up one’s security. You know that.”

Lidia said, “I feel depressed.”

“Well don’t be. I believe there’s a way out that would satisfy everybody, and I’ve suggested it to her.”

“What’s that, then?”